The Dojo and the Dirt: What Cultivating Resilience Actually Takes There is a man who shaped the way we think about resilience here at Hope Reimagined. His name is Tesfaye Tekelu, a trainer with the Strozzi Institute and someone I had the honor to work and learn along side at Destiny Arts Center. Today he lead the Strozzi Community Dojo—a practice space that brings us back to body, in relationship and growing together. This is an open free space and the link is attached. My relationship with Tes and what I have learned from him is deeply embedded in the NSIF. Today Tesfaye led us in practice to cultivate resilience. He reminded me it’s not a trait you either have or don’t. It is not toughness. It is not the ability to push through. It is something much more alive than that: the capacity to be moved by life and return to yourself. To be knocked off center—by grief, by conflict, by overwhelm, by joy—and to find your way back. Not perfectly. Not immediately. But reliably, over time. Resilience is not the absence of being shaken. It is the practiced ability to return. And that return is not a mental decision—it is a somatic one. The body knows the way back. We practice so that path becomes familiar. Within the Neuro-Somatic Integration™ Framework, we understand resilience as a nervous system capacity—not a personality trait, not a mindset, and not something you perform. It is built through patterned, rhythmic, embodied practice. It is built by presenting moments of joy and how they felt in your body,. By recalling in sensation the memories of those moments. It is not toxic positivity it is remembering viscerally authentic moments of joy that help us navigate day to day. Tes talked about resilience as a spring rather then a bucket and our somatic practice is to identify the blocks to resilience and to clear the path for it to flow in ways we can return to over and over again. 🌱 Micro-Practice: The Joy That Lives in Your Body Rather than a centering exercise, it becomes a guided somatic resourcing journey — walking the reader back into a real memory of joy through each sense, in sequence:

Thursdays are a heavy coaching day for me, so I’ll be a little lighter on engagement here today—but I still want to keep the soundtrack of the day going. 🎶 Yesterday, @Ires Aponte shared a song that instantly became my post meditation morning personal dance party track. 💃🏽✨ https://youtu.be/C7tu4EMoDxI?si=osCC2dDB_nvRmSVM I’m collecting the songs that move me during these mornings and weaving them into a soundtrack for our March retreat—music that carries energy, grounding, and joy. I like all kinds of music in many different genres so share what insures you! Drop a song for the soundtrack of your day below. I may just add it to the retreat playlist. 🌿🎧

A few Skool tips to help you get the most out of this community—especially as we grow. I learned a few of these from @Jack Robinson and the wealth of info he has in the Skool Yard 1️⃣ Like your own posts + comments; It may feel funny, but liking your own post or comment does count toward your Leadership Board points. While we’re not doing a lot with the leaderboard yet, it will start to matter—higher engagement will unlock access to some content, and I’ll also be doing shout-outs to folks who are showing up and contributing in meaningful ways. 2️⃣ Customize your notifications: As the community grows and I continue to post more regularly, emails and notifications may start to feel like a lot. You can adjust notification settings for each Skool community individually: - Hourly - Daily - Weekly - Or never I personally keep most of mine set to 1x/week, but you might prefer daily or real-time updates. Choose what supports your nervous system, not what overwhelms it. 3️⃣ Check the Classroom tab: This is where courses, replays, and structured content live. If you miss a live or want to revisit something, this is your go-to spot. This is still very much a seedling and we hope to grow the classroom into a forest. 4️⃣ Pin posts you want to come back to: Pinned posts stay at the top of your feed—great for practices, resources, or conversations you want to return to. 5️⃣ Lurking counts: You don’t have to post to belong. Reading, reflecting, and quietly taking things in is a valid (and often necessary) way of being in community. 6️⃣ Use the search bar: Looking for a topic, practice, or question you remember seeing? The search tool can save a lot of scrolling. If you have other Skool hacks you love, drop them in the comments—we’ll build this wisdom together

I will keep offering both scheduled and random practices. I hope this serves you it is about 11 minutes and grounded in Strozzi Institute Somatics